It's On Me
by hongice
Summary: "And for being so cute, I'll sneak you the wine. Half off! All on me!" Sigrid smiled and Astrid looked at her in confusion. This dirty blonde sure was one hell of a character. [Nyotalia DenNor]
1. Chapter 1

It was another sticky and humid day in Texas, and it didn't help that the summer sun glared down at all on the ground seemingly more than yesterday.

Astrid Thomassen, a pasty and sweaty seventeen year old, stood in her room and peeled off a worn out t-shirt with holes and paint stains that stuck to her skin and threw it in a corner of the bedroom where a large pile of dirty clothes was grew each day.

Despite it being the middle of June and living in Texas, where it was sunny nearly every day, Astrid's skin was the same ghostly colour as it had been since birth. This annoyed her to no end.

Looking around for a new, clean shirt to pull on and not being able to locate one, she swiped a sailor striped tank top off of her sister's bed which was on the other side of their shared room. Only born a few months apart, most of the clothes they wore were in the same size and the two borrowed from each other constantly.

Slipping the shirt over her head and sticking her arms through, Astrid pulled her hair back into a ponytail with a hair band on her wrist. The tight hold of the tie left an imprint in her skin and Astrid rubbed at it before running her hands through the slightly greasy hair to smooth it out.

Only a week into summer break and she'd already grown bored. Her friends were visiting places like England, New York, Spain, while she and her sister were stuck in Austin for the next three months.

She made her way down the small set of steps of the second level to meet the cold tile of the first and wiggled her toes. Astrid swung into the kitchen where her younger sister, Elka, leaned over the counter and was looking down at her phone, sipping a glass of lemonade.

Unlike Astrid, whos skin was a close match to Casper the Ghost's, Elka was tan. Not so much that it contrasted too much to her thick, curly light blonde hair but enough to see the skin that the light never touched when she wore bikinis.

Astrid walked up behind her and whispered a "boo" into the youngers ear. Much to her disappointment, Elka didn't jump nor shout, only turn and shoot Astrid an unimpressed look before furrowing her eyebrows.

"Is that my shirt?" She turned to face her older sister who replied with a smug look and placed her hands akimbo.

"Ran out of clothes," Astrid explained and spun to show off every angle of her new look. "I think it rather suits me, though, don't you agree?"

Elka scoffed and puffed out her cheeks in a pout. "Just...give it back when you're done, will ya?" She asked, pushing her bangs out of her eyes to look at Astrid, who nodded.

"Deal. I'm goin' out to grab some groceries, though, so you got any requests?" Astrid turned to grab her backpack that was slung over a chair tucked into the wooden table that they ate their meals on. She looked back over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow at Elka.

"Hm…" Elka put a finger to her chin thoughtfully and looked around the room before meeting her dull blue eyes with Astrid's sharp denim ones. "More lemonade mix," She nodded. "Oh, and some more cereal. Life," Elka added.

"For fucks' sake, Els, we got two boxes last weekend. You're tellin' me ya ate through _both_ of them already?" Astrid groaned and Elka flashed a cheeky grin before looking down at her phone she held in her hand, which was buzzing.

"Oh? Who's that?" Astrid stood on her tippy toes and peered over curiously. Elka swiped the screen and held her phone to her ear.

"Hello?" Elka answered, mouthing _Nicolette _as best as she could to her sister.

Nicolette was a French transfer student Elka had befriended her in biology, as told over takeout Chinese one night, and claimed to be from Monaco. She had long, shiny blonde hair that reached her waist and specialised in a surprising amount of card games.

Astrid nodded and grabbed her backpack, swinging it over her shoulders and the two gave short goodbye waves.

The sound of Elka laughing and gushing into her phone eagerly grew fainter and fainter as Astrid opened the screen front door and let it shut behind her.

x X x

The closest grocery store wasn't too far away, only a block or two, and even quicker to reach when riding on bike. Because neither of the sisters could afford a car, and Elka didn't even have her license yet. Their parents were usually never home, one stuck in the office or late because of traffic, and the other hopping around the country for business.

This didn't bother anyone, though, and in fact, it was preferred more to live like this. Elka and Astrid were capable of taking care of themselves. To get to school, they would take the bus or ride a bike and a taxi to get around if it was a lazy day. But today, Astrid decided to walk. In only a few minutes she reached the sliding doors to the grocery store and welcomed the air conditioned cold air of the market.

She pulled out a reusable fabric bag from her backpack and glanced down at the palm of her hand where she had scribbled the grocery list in sharpie earlier. Elka's cereal and lemonade mix wasn't written but Astrid would probably be reminded of it later while in the line to check out, as always.

Astrid strolled right past the fruits and vegetables section and instead into the _Wheats and Grains _aisle. Two loaves of white bread, one bag of flour, and yeast.

_Check, check and check, _Astrid mentally crossed off and turned into another aisle. All that was left was brown sugar, sausage, Elka's lemonade mix and cereal, and wine.

"Ah?" Astrid squinted at the words written on her hand. Had she read that correctly? Wine? She wasn't even legal to buy a pack of cigarettes, but Astrid went with it anyways.

She picked up all of the foods scrawled onto her fingers and palm and grabbed a bottle of the cheapest but nicest looking wine that could be found and made her way to the checkout centre. It wasn't busy or crowded; the store never was, to be frank, since it was one of the lesser known chains.

With two empty and one stationed with a grumpy woman in what looked like her late sixties, Astrid went to the checkout counter where a woman her age was slouched in a chair and playing a game on her phone.

"Hey," Astrid coughed and dropped the bag onto the conveyor belt with a loud enough thud to draw a glare from the old lady and a few glances from shoppers. The employee shot up in surprise and scrambled to put her phone away.

"Don't tell my boss?" The young adult smiled pleadingly and blinked her lapis blue eyes, similar to Astrid's.

"Just as long as ya check out m'stuff," Astrid assured and began to place the foodstuff on the belt.

Sigrid, the store name tag read, chuckled and scanned the items. "Yer a funny one. It's my first day here, so I gotta impress the boss. Don't wanna get fired, y'know?" Sigrid had choppy dirty blone hair and bangs held back by a black hair band and was already proving to be quite the chatterbox.

Astrid only hummed in agreement and listened to her continue, "I plan on buying a car soon! My first! Pretty cool, hah?" Sigrid trailed on, growing more excited, but suddenly changed the subject. "Hey, you go to the high school right? You look pretty young to be buyin' wine. Bread...wine…What're ya planning on makin' anyways? The Last Supper?"

Astrid chuckled at that. "Yes, I do, I am, and no." She replied with a loose, closed smile. During this time, the employee was packing away the goods in the fabric bag Astrid had broughten along with her.

"Me too!" Sigrid cried and leaned forward. "Senior year! I'm surprised I haven't such a beautiful lady as yourself around!" This caused Astrid to blush, trying to find somewhere to look.

"Ah...Thanks…?" Astrid said and took her bag that Sigrid held out in front of her. Wearing a proud look on her face and arms crossed, her bubbly acquaintance stroked her chin.

"And for being so cute, I'll sneak you the wine. Half off! All on me!" Sigrid smiled and Astrid looked at her in confusion. This dirty blonde sure was one hell of a character. "As a thank you, you can give me…your number?" Astrid rolled her eyes. One hell of a character, indeed.

"Here," Astrid motioned for Sigrid to give her her hand and leaned over the counter to pluck up a pen. Lightly, she wrote her digits in on Sigrid's skin; it was a similar shade as Elka's, with a few scabs and freckles decorating it like specks of paint on a canvas.

The ink stained into it and Sigrid looked at it, basking in pride, which made Astrid shake her head in amusement. "I'll call ya later, then, yeah?" Astrid said and adjusted herself so that the bag of groceries weighed down one shoulder and her backpack, the other. "Yeah," Sigrid nodded and saluted her off.

On the way back home, Astrid couldn't help but bit her lip from smiling. Sigrid may have been what she needed to liven up the summer.


	2. Chapter 2

The rest of the day was spent with the AC as cold as it could get without draining all of their money in the bills, cleaning off melted popsicle from sticky hands, and pacing around the house in hope something interesting would come out of it.

"What d'ya want for dinner?" Elka asked from her lying position on the couch but never tearing her gaze from her phone that she held above her.. She and Astrid were in the living room, checking their phones for anything new and constantly double tapping the home button to switch apps.

Astrid thought for a moment. "...We have some leftovers, right?" Avoiding trying to think of a real suggestion, she offered that, and Elka snorted in response.

"Maybe. Maybe not," Elka sighed loudly and kicked a pillow at the end of the couch onto the floor. "It's okay if I go to Nicolette's, right?" The two exchanged eye contact and Astrid nodded before sitting up straight from her strange slouching position with one leg hanging off the couch, the other resting on a stack of pillows.

"Just don't invite yerself over, got it?" Astrid only asked this of her; her little sister had a tendency to do that, but no one seemed to mind that much. She had a calming presence.

Elka gave two thumbs up before hopping to her feet and slipping on a pair of sandals, pulling the door to the garage opening and taking her leave.

It was six already, and still there was barely a cloud in the sky. One of the downsides to summer is that it didn't get dark until late in the night as Astrid preferred it to be when the little hand landed at five.

On the other hand, Elka loved being able to leave the curtains open until ten or eleven and being able to walk to her friends' homes without relying on street lamps and the red lights of cars to see and enjoyed curling up in a chair and basking in the sunlight beaming through the windows, much like a cat.

As much as Astrid _loved _having nothing to do, something had to be done. She couldn't just lay around and munch on gummy bears and licorice all summer, though the idea didn't sound all that bad.

Pressing down on the home button on her phone, she tapped on one of the folders and scrolled right to find the contacts app. Her homescreen was arranged with only three folders at the bottom where all her apps were stored neatly and colour scheme coded; there was nothing to cover her background of a mountain.

Beatrice, Elka, Octavia, Rosa, and for god knows why, Julchen, who if she recalled was a tourist who Astrid had had a one-night stand with. Mamma and Pappa were there as well; she really didn't have that many people to call, did she? Unlike Elka, whose contact list could take half an hour to go through, Astrid did not and only took a second to reach the bottom.

_Beatrice is nice, _Astrid decided and tapped her name to call her to see if she would be interested in coming over.

Beatrice Oxenstierna: a strong, tall, socially awkward and slightly intimidating senior with pure Swedish blood and a good friendship with Astrid. She had a calm face and long, dark blonde hair that reached past her armpits. Her parents had moved from Sweden to Texas before she was born and lived only down the street from the Thomassens in a nice sized house painted beige and white. Beatrice could whip up a good meal of nearly anything and had a not-so-hidden talent for building furniture.

The two had met in freshmen year when put into almost all of the same classes, Language B and several electives being the exceptions. Their mutual love for baking (more so cooking in Beatrice's case) and all things food had brought them together and along with Elka, made up the Nordic trio. Elka and Astrid were a mix of Icelandic and Norwegian from their parents, while Beatrice was only Swedish.

Astrid held her phone to her ear with her shoulder and used her hands to push herself off the couch and go to grab a glass of water. The phone beeped a few times before the other line answered with a "_Hello?_".

"Hey," Astrid replied and pulled a pitcher of water out from the fridge. Elka was picky about water, especially if it was tap, and their fridge didn't have an water dispenser, so she had gone out and bought one of those high-tech pitchers with the water filters. A bit much, yes, but Elka seemed to be pleased with it.

"Got any interest in coming over?" She asked into the phone and took a sip of her water.

The other side of the line was quiet for only a beat and Beatrice hummed in approval. "_Sure…I'll be right over,_" She stated and hung up. Neither of the teenagers were big on saying goodbye over the phone.

xXx

Beatrice arrived minutes after hanging up, as expected, and brought a small dog with her.

"Where did you get that?" Astrid pointed to the small ball of fluff that looked like a huge ball of snow. Hopefully it was potty trained.

"Found it." Beatrice responded vaguely and reached down to try to pick up the dog who was running around the room excitedly, sniffing couches and trying to climb onto chairs.

"Found it _where_?" The lighter blonde cocked an eyebrow and looked down at it. It had a collar but Beatrice explained that there was no name tag; only a red bow tied in it's place.

Beatrice opened her mouth to answer but was cut off by the ringing off Astrid's phone. She reached in her pocket to dig it out and swiped to answer. The number wasn't in her contacts, but it was a local caller.

**"****_Hey!_****" ****A cheery voice greeted and Astrid winced from the unexpected loudness of their voice. ****"****_It's Sigrid- ya know, girl from the grocery store. I forgot to tell you my number so I wanted to call._****" ****Sigrid explained and Beatrice shot a confused look at Astrid before focusing on the scampering dog. **

"Hello, Sigrid," Astrid spoke into the phone coolly and sat down on the leather couch, leaning backwards into the soft cushion.

"_I was actually wonderin' if you wanted to hang out sometime?_"

"...Sounds fine," Astrid tapped her foot in the air. "You could swing around right now, actually. I've got a friend over, hope 'ya don't mind."

"_As long as it's cool with that friend of yers'! Text me your place?_" Astrid agreed and did so, typing her address into the chat, receiving at least more than ten smiley and thumb up emojis back.

"Who w's that?" Beatrice joined Astrid on the couch and rested her feet on the brown ottoman that was placed between the two couches that faced each other. The white dog followed and Beatrice lifted it onto the couch to snuggle with her.

"A friend." Astrid answered simply.

xXx

Quarter past seven is when Sigrid made her appearance, only taking a little more time to come over than Beatrice had.

"Nice house." Was the first thing she said when stepping in the Thomassen residence. Astrid made no comment and silently led her to the family room where Beatrice sat, absent mindedly stroking the dog that was in her lap.

"Holy shit!" was the second.

Beatrice looked up at the newcomer and narrowed her eyes; she already had a bad feeling about this girl. "What?" Astrid asked as Sigrid came closer to inspect the sleeping dog.

"That's Hana! Hanatamago!" Sigrid exclaimed with wide eyes. "She's my friends' dog. Lil' Hana here's been missin' for a week!" Gesturing wildly at the ball of fluff, Sigrid laughed and spun around. "Man, Tiina's gonna be so happy! Where'd ya find her?"

The silent blonde raised an eyebrow and looked down at a now awake Hanatamago who was wagging her little tail. "I see...By m'house…" She mumbled. Sigrid was beginning to relax and flung herself onto the opposite couch.

Astrid, who was just standing in shock at how quickly that had gone over, sat with Beatrice and crossed her legs. "Why don't ya call her? Four isn't...that much of a crowd."

"Good idea! I'll call 'er right now!" And just like that, Sigrid took her phone out of her shorts' pocket and began to speak to what could only be Tiina and gave her the directions.

"She lives pretty far away, that's why she's been so worried! Haha, she should be here in 'bout half an hour." Sigrid uncharacteristically smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of her head. "So…Guess I never introduced myself. The name's Sigrid!" She stuck her hand out to Beatrice, who shook it reluctantly and pulled away quickly.

"Beatrice Oxenstierna." Her dark navy eyes narrowed at Sigrid suspiciously. There was a pause of silence. "...Do I know you?"

Another pause.

"Hah?" Sigrid cocked her head slightly. "Don't think so. I've never seen you before."

A third pause, this one longer than the first two.

After the three stole quick glances at each other to see who would make the first move, Astrid made the choice and clapped her hands softly. "Well then," She broke the ice. "Wanna to watch a movie?"


End file.
